For example, "try cooking eggs with a cooking spray, which preps your pan for cooking eggs with almost zero fat and calories," recommends Basbaum. Or opt for healthier fats than butter or bacon grease. "Cooking eggs with minimal fat or using unsaturated fats like olive oil or avocado oil are healthier alternatives.
Fried Eggs
"When they are fried, it gives them a little toasted brown butter flavor, which only adds to the eggs," she says. "Butter also makes everything better!" Butter certainly works for fried eggs, but oil is the fat of choice for cooks who want a runny yolk with a satisfying crispy white.
For example, eggs typically are eaten with other foods high in salt, saturated fat and cholesterol, such as bacon, cheese and butter. These foods are known to increase heart disease risk and should be eaten sparingly.
Bottom line: Olive, canola and safflower oils are healthier choices overall than butter and most margarines. Use them as replacements for butter and margarine in most of your cooking, but watch the amounts – those fat calories can add up fast.
Both butter and olive oil are high in calories and fat, but olive oil is generally considered a healthier option due to its beneficial fats and lower levels of saturated fats compared to butter.
Butter is made from the fat and protein solids from milk, while olive oil is plant-derived. Butter works better for baking or making pastries. While olive oil is ideal for cooking, frying or marinade.
Cooking eggs with olive oil is considered to be a healthier opinion when compared with butter (via Live Strong). The Olive Oil Source details exactly what kinds of benefits different olive oils have. Extra virgin seems to be the best for fried eggs because it has the highest smoke point.
If you add a tablespoon of olive oil or avocado oil to the pan, you may also be adding some extra health benefits to your eggs. Both of these oils are considered “healthy fats” which may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Olive oil is also considered an antioxidant that may help fight inflammation.
People with raised cholesterol often wonder if it's OK to eat eggs, as egg yolk is rich in cholesterol. Generally speaking, it should be fine for most people, as the cholesterol in eggs does not have a significant effect on blood cholesterol. It's much more important to limit the amount of saturated fat you eat.
Both types of eggs are high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. However, fried eggs are typically cooked in oil or butter, which adds extra calories and unhealthy fats to the dish. On the other hand, scrambled eggs can be cooked with less oil or butter, making them a healthier option.
We generally try to reach for monounsaturated fats when pan-frying. These healthy fats are liquid at room temperature (as compared to saturated fat like lard, butter and coconut oil that are solid at room temp). Our favorite healthy fats for pan-frying are avocado oil, canola oil and olive oil.
Fat. Even with a nonstick pan, fat is necessary for flipping and flavoring your omelet. Traditionally, butter is used in an omelet. However, you can use basically any type of oil, shortening, or animal fat.
Importantly, olive oil also produced nice browning on the underside of the white, which spread less than when fried in butter. Olive oil makes for an excellent everyday fried egg, through and through.
The layer of fat gets between the pan and the eggs and prevents the proteins from sticking. You can cook eggs in any kind of pan—even a cast-iron skillet, but you need to make sure you have oil in it and keep the eggs moving so that a bond never gets a chance to form. For the rest of us, a nonstick pan is best.
COOK TO RELEASE MORE NUTRIENTS
Cooking eggs makes them safer to eat and makes it so the nutrients are easier for your body to digest and absorb. In fact, one study found that cooking eggs makes it so the body can use almost twice as much of the protein found in raw eggs.
Optimum Daily Intake
According to the US FDA, our daily intake of monounsaturated fatty acids should be at least around 17.5 grams, which is about 1.5 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
The average medium-sized egg, boiled or poached, still only contains around 66 calories. If you scramble an egg with a teaspoon of butter (no milk), or fry it using a teaspoon of olive oil, you're adding about 37 calories and about 4.4g of fat.
When used in cooking, both butter and olive oil help carry the flavors of the food, and warming them accentuates this property. Butter is smooth and creamy, adding a dairy richness that no oil can match. Olive oil provides a unique flavor and aroma. Together, they enhance the flavor of your foods.
Like any other oil, olive oil is a processed, concentrated fat extract and thus has lost most of the nutritional value of its original form (the olive itself). If you want some nutritional value, you will find it by eating the whole olive—not by consuming it in its almost unrecognizable extracted oil form.
"Butter adds flavour and creaminess to foods, richness to sauces and can help balance strong acidic foods like tomato sauces and lemon-heavy hollandaise," says Fiona. Butter can also be vital in baking, acting as a carrier for creaming sugar and adding pockets of air to give baked goods a lighter, fluffier crumb.